Blog Post

Akamai released it quarter 1 State of the Internet report at the end of June which among other things showed the average speeds for broadband throughout the world.

The report shows that South Africa currently has an average broadband speed of 6.5Mbps which is not the slowest on the continent but came significantly lower than countries in the Middle East such as Israel that had an average broadband speed of 13.5Mbps, the UAE at 8.8Mbps and Qatar at 8.4Mbps. In addition, South Africa scored slower speeds than Kenya that has an average speed of 7.3Mbps but came in significantly higher than Nigeria at 3.3Mbps and Namibia at 2.3Mbps.

Despite the mediocre score that South Africa showed in its average broadband speeds, it did see a quarter-on-quarter change of 59% and a year-on-year change of 96% which shows significant growth and in total Africa, and the Middle East have seen positive changes in their average connection speeds over the past few years which means that internet technology on the continent is advancing.